In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London

Alex Pink’s Spitalfields, Then & Now

June 17, 2013

by the gentle author

As Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archive reopens tomorrow after months of building work, it is my pleasure to publish this collaboration with Spitalfields Life Contributing Photographer Alex Pink who selected photographs of familiar locations from the archive, and then set out with his camera to revisit the same streets and discover what changes times has wrought.

Notice how much CLEANER everything is now?
Look at the liiter & dirt … especially in the 1970′s – which seems to have been “the pits” for the area, when it was at bottom.
In the much older photos, everyone, but everyone, is wearing a hat, too.

Great photos. Can the bollard on the right hand side of Fashion Street 2013 be the same one as pictured in 1965 ? Positioned at the same spot and leaning at the same angle…..if only it could speak…..what changes. As others have said, many changes have been for the better and it is comforting to know that so much has survived.

- Gentrification has the good and bad sides. Both very evident here.
- Some lovely buildings got razed only to be replaced by eye sores (Chicksand St is a good example)
- You cant see the Tower 42 in the 60s
- Halal shop in 1981 – Hilarious
- Yakee Doodle burger place on Petticoat Lane Market – sounds lovely
- People now wear animal onsies on the streets of Brick Lane casually.
- Beards – the timeless manly tool
- Yeah things are cleaner now – but that’s the case for all of London, especially the areas that saw super gentrification. EC1 to E1 is probably one of the most changed areas demographically since the 60s!

Lovely comparisons – I wonder if a sense of place will remain in 30 years time when we look back at another part of this area, Norton Folgate, and evaluate its change over time. My worry is that it will be unrecognisable and that British Land will have destroyed a unique and distinctive part of our city – an area, supposedly in a ‘conservation area’ that is subject to 70% demolition. It is still possible to object to this so called redevelopment – sign the petition at: http://bit.ly/1wcZYID

Copyright

Unauthorized use or duplication of these words and pictures without written permission is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Spitalfields Life with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Spitalfields Life is nourished by a weekly vegetable box from Leila's Shop in Calvert Avenue.